Gateway – Nalates’ Things & Stuff

Firestorm News Week 1

2016/01/06 by Nalates Urriah

It is probably important for some to know that Firestorm Viewer 4.7.1 Public Beta will be blocked starting tomorrow 1/7/16. Reference Also, after the next release (February? March?) the version 4.6.9, used by Windows XP and Mac 10.6 users, will be blocked.

Help

The Firestorm Team has made a second request for help with their gateway project. This time they are asking for user testimonials. They will be adding these to their web gateway pages that lead new users to their gateway regions. See: Share Your Love of Second Life with a Testimonial.

If you have a blog or other web site, you can help by linking to Firestorm’s gateway landing pages. See their ‘share’ post for a list of the 6 landing pages. You’ll also find them in my blog roll.

Ghost Town Screw Ups

2015/12/21 by Nalates Urriah

This time I’ll warn you up front, the title is a deliberately ambiguous headline.

We have lots of interesting Second Life™ promotions stuff going on. Firestorm is asking for people to submit photos: Share your photos this weekend to promote Second Life. The photos will go in the Firestorm Gateway section of Flickr. Canary Beck is moderating the photo pool. It has 4,678 images as I write this.

CAUTION: SPOILER AHEAD!

Second Life: The Conspiracy to STOP Ghost Town

2016/01/062015/12/19 by Nalates Urriah

As I scan through the posts in the Second Life™ blogosphere I find more and more articles are about places. The blogosphere is becoming a tour guide. It seems Second Life is fashion and tourism. Fashion makes money, tourism doesn’t.

Whatever the case, Inara has an article on Ghost Town. But, her story is not about tourism. Ghost Town is a training area in the Firestorm Team’s regions designed as a game by MadPea. The area opens today (12/19) at 14:00 SLT or 2 PM SLT/PST. They will have entertainment from various people/groups. They are expecting the 4 regions to handle about 200 people.

Is the Firestorm Viewer on schedule?

2015/11/10 by Nalates Urriah

At the Third Party Developers’ meeting Jessica said the viewer is on schedule for a November 16 or 17 release. That of course depends on whether a serious problem is found or things work as planned.

This release will also be caught up with the Linden made viewer. I think that means the Linden version 3.8.6-305981, which is the current default viewer as I write this.

Firestorm Gateway Regions - Nov 2016 — Firestorm Gateway Regions – Nov 2016

If you made it to the Firestorm Halloween party you have seen the Firestorm gateway regions. The Halloween celebration was also a launch party (reference) for the gateway build. Some well known designers/builders have helped. One being MadPea.

Firestorm + MadPea

2015/10/31 by Nalates Urriah

Inara has an article up about the new testing of Community Gateways. We have seen the idea of community gateways appear a number of times over the years. We are now on the eve another iteration. In this one Linden Lab, Firestorm Developers, and MadPea Game Designers have teamed up to create a new gateway. … Read more

Community Gateways for Second Life

2015/09/04 by Nalates Urriah

Once upon a time Second Life™ had community gateways, Linden sponsored, built, and managed. In 2010 they closed. In 2011 user sponsored gateways opened. (Reference – an out dated list of gateways) In 2011 when Rodvik Linden, then CEO, was asked if they would ever come back, he didn’t know what they were. Then in late 2011 we got the Destination Guide and user gateways were depreciated.

So, are they coming back?

1 stare at the hole — Portal ? Gateway? Trap? Conveyance?

First, if you don’t know, community gateways are places where new users are dropped at first login. The location is designed for new users and is typically filled with tutorials and teaching experiences. Back in 2011 Prim Perfect did a piece on what are Community Gateways: So what were these community gateways? An answer for Rodvik Linden. Gateways are sort of synonymous portals. The portal is the sign up web site. The gateway is the region the portal sends you to. That it isn’t set in stone, but it will give you a since of how the words are often used..

We have already been speculating on whether portals for Sansar are a good thing. See: Drama: Community Portals for Second Life 2. We have had loads of people documenting how bad some of the gateways are: Second Life: The New New User Tutorial. We have had some great gateways: Second Life Player Retention 2014-21.